1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for delivering electronic data to a delivery destination.
2. Description of the Related Art
A delivery system that delivers electronic data stored in a document database or the like to an electronic mail (email) address specified by a user or to a folder on a file system has been conventionally used (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-62859, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-274150, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-288041, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-175594).
Further, a workflow system that defines a series of workflows relating to a certain operation or a series of flows standardized according to a work content to execute an operation based on the defined workflow has been heretofore used (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-282970). For example, in a case that a document is circulated to many persons in a company, when a workflow is used, the time required for each person to come to a place where the document is placed can be saved, thereby enabling speed-up of operations.
There has been a technique for circulating an electronic mail or an electronic document by applying the workflow to a delivery system that delivers electronic data to a delivery destination. According to this technique, as shown in FIG. 12, one flow can be built for one delivery destination. Therefore, portable document format (PDF)-converted data can be delivered by email delivery or folder delivery. In other words, because a plurality of delivery processes can be concurrently executed by one delivery operation, efficient processing is possible, and a user needs only to perform one delivery operation.
However, according to the conventional technique, after email delivery or folder delivery has been executed by one workflow, the flow cannot be repeated again. Therefore, in the company, when an operation is performed by transferring the electronic mail or the electronic document between persons in charge (applicant, examiner, and approver), there is a problem that such a workflow cannot be realized that examination by the examiner and approval by the approver are organized.